IF / News

Chipsets

IC foundries have seen their 8” fab utilization rates pick up recently, driven by a pull-in of orders for IoT and automotive electronics applications, according to Digitimes. Pure-play foundries including TSMC, UMC and VIS have seen their 8” fab utilization rates start rising in 2Q19.  (Digitimes, press)

TSMC has announced delivery of the complete version of its 5 nanometer (nm) design infrastructure within the Open Innovation Platform (OIP). This full release enables 5nm systems-on-chip (SoC) designs in next-generation advanced mobile and high-performance computing (HPC) applications, targeting high-growth 5G and artificial intelligence (AI) markets. (Gizmo China, TSMC, EET China)

Touch Display

Sharp has demonstrated a new 6.18” 1440×3040 foldable AMOLED prototype. The company says that it can withstand over 300,000 bending cycles. Sharp is looking to bring a commercial product to market “in a few years’ time”. (Android Authority, OLED-Info, OfWeek, ZOL)

LG’s patent is related to a smartphone with a transparent folding screen. The idea is the existence of a variable transparency screen in one of the two halves, while the other half will have an opaque section to house the battery and the internal components. (GizChina, CN Beta, USPTO, LetsGoDigital)

Camera

According to CIPA (Camera and Imaging Products Association), global digital camera shipments in the first 2 months of 2019 have fallen below 1M units. Camera sales witnessed a 74.1% decline in Jan 2019 on YoY basis with total shipments falling to 1,001,398 units. Whereas it further sank 69.7% in Feb with shipments coming under a million marks – exactly 935,148 units. (Gizmo China, Evolife, My Drivers)

Memory

Intel’s Optane Memory H10 SSD will begin shipping soon in pre-built systems from major OEMs. The Optane Memory H10 is a unique 2-in-1 SSD combining 3D XPoint memory and QLC NAND flash memory on a single M.2 module. (CN Beta, AnandTech, SlashGear)

Samsung Electronics uses mainly 18nm process technology to manufacture server DRAM chips, and is gearing up for transition to a newer 16nm process node in 2020, according to Digitimes Research. Samsung has held an over 50% share of the global server DRAM market in terms of unit shipments. (Digitimes, press, Digitimes)

Battery

Apple has announced that it will exceed its goal of introducing 4 gigawatts of renewable energy into its supply chain by 202. The announcement means that 44 Apple suppliers have pledged to use green energy when it comes to dealing with Apple products. (My Drivers, Neowin, Apple)

Connectivity

The Japanese government approved the country’s 4 mobile operators to build 5G wireless network plans and asked them to build a 5G network covering Japan throughout the country within 2 years. The 3 big carriers — NTT DoCoMo, KDDI and SoftBank — along with new entrant Rakuten, received spectrum from the telecoms ministry. (VentureBeat, GizChina, IT Home)

China Tower and Huawei have announced the completion of a joint innovation test on 5G energy solutions. The joint innovation results provide insight into the power supply mode for 5G sites and demonstrate the value of the joint efforts being made by the two parties to promote the maturity of the 5G power industry. (CN Beta, Huawei)

Phone

Redmi Note 7 and Redmi Note 7 Pro sales have surpassed 4M units globally, while the Redmi Note 7 sold more than 1M units in China in its first month of availability. (GSM Arena, Twitter, Sohu)

Apple has paid at least USD485M to acquire Texture, the digital magazine subscription service it acquired in early 2018. (Apple Insider, NY Post, CN Beta)

Over 1/3 of consumers who bought the Google Pixel 3 and the OnePlus 6T, during 4Q18, were previous Samsung owners, according to Counterpoint Research. Less than 1 in 5 people who bought either device was a previous Apple user. (Phone Arena, Counterpoint Research)

TikTok launches musician program “TikTok Spotlight” to support independent artists, starting with Japan and Korea. TikTok Spotlight will offer independent artists direct exposure to music industry leaders. (CN Beta, The Verge, Business Wire)

Huawei consumer business group VP Zhu Ping has revealed that Huawei now owns 1,200 offline service stores, and will reach nearly 1,500 by end of 2019, covering more than 95% of China’s prefecture-level cities. Huawei has more than 1,000 city-level experience stores, and it is expected to increase to about 1,500 by 2019. At the same time, there are more than 2,500 county-level experience stores, and expected to reach 3,000 by end of 2019. (My Drivers, CN Beta)

Disney has revealed detailed plans for Disney+, a new video streaming service scheduled to go live in Nov 2019 with Disney’s diverse catalog of movies, television shows and original content. Disney+ subscribers who pay the USD6.99 per month, or USD69.99 a year. (Apple Insider, Reuters, Android Headlines, CN Beta)

OPPO SVP Brian Shen reveals that the company will “stop” OPPO R series, and will use Reno instead for next decade. OPPO R series reportedly has exceeded 100M units cumulatively. Reno series will also use different promotion method than R, which uses stardoms. The company will use the product’s detailed information to communicate with the consumers. (My Drivers, CN Beta)

Augmented / Virtual Reality

Sony’s patent illustrates prescription glasses that features eye gaze tracking for a VR headset. The patent says that the eye-tracking sensor is able to determine “gaze information of the user in order to improve quality of content provided for rendering on the head mounted display”. (Digital Trends, Upload VR, USPTO, CN Beta)

Automotive

Ford CEO Jim Hackett has revealed that they have overestimated the arrival of autonomous vehicles. While Ford’s first self-driving car is still coming in 2021, “its applications will be narrow, what we call geo-fenced, because the problem is so complex”. (Pocket-Lint, Bloomberg, Engadget CN)